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The New Filter - Thoughts & Criticism

This is a thread about the new filter at the top of RPS, because I thought there surely would be one already, so I ended up starting it, in the hopes of helping RPS find its equilibrium, if necessary.

I like the possibilities you can choose, and atleast theoretically blends in nicely with the rest of the site what information overview is concerned.
However, I seriously dislike it graphically at the moment, because of the border around it and the "current features" pictures. The border is lacking everywhere else, which is why Im thinking its probably an error?

EDIT: I just noticed, its the only with in grey background, the other posts are in white. Maybe thats the reason?

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it." - The Conclave

I'm not really sure having 'Hardware' as one of the categories is useful. The last article to fall under that was more than a month ago, and there are only 2 articles in that category from the last 3 months or so.

I'm not even going to ask what the f*ck is with the 'Reviews' category? Seriously? What the f*ck?

WiT is useless to someone whose new to the site. Reviews is a suitable heading.

Why yes you're right I'm deliciously evil
Tradition is the tyranny of dead men
Steam:Kadayi Origin: Kadayi
Their early work was a little too new wave for my tastes....The Conclave beckons ... PM for details

Having a WiT heading would indeed be useless to new visitors. Perhaps having the alt-text for that option be something along the lines of 'See wot we think' might be a way to appease regulars and ease newcomers into the lingo here.

EDIT:

To address the other filters, they seem nice and functional and all that, but I cannot see myself ever using them. What with my RSS feed and regular visits to the site keeping me abreast of new posts, it's simply not something I need.

Like I said... I wasn't asking about the Review section. Why'd you guys need to analyse it so much?

Tikey got it though. T'was a joke... WIT's are quite removed from the typical 'Reviews' that most sites/publications produce. And this can cause some problems with new people... they come along, see a WIT and take umbrage with it... being too subjective, not being objective, the writer being biased or flippant, there being no score etc., etc.... they then comment that "this review is terrible", and then people respond that "it isn't a review, it's a WIT". I was attempting a flippant, frivolous comment about the WIT/Review disconnect.

I'd actually go with the opposite of Splynter's suggestion... Make the category header "Wot We Think" and make the alt-text 'Reviews & Stuff' or similar. The more WITs/Reviews are differentiated, the better... new readers won't go into them expecting a standard 'review', but instead the special RPS WIT way of doing things. Having 'Reviews' as the header, which then leads to 'Wot I Thinks' doesn't help with that differentiation, and instead will just lead new readers to start reading WITs expecting standard reviews.

Embiggenating a picture (such as the image in the Banner Saga article, that's currently at the top of the main page) causes the Filter bar to appear on top of the embiggened image. Can be fixed by embiggening pictures from the article itself (where there is no Filter bar) rather than the front page. But it might catch people out, if they embiggen images from the top of articles near the top of the main page.

As someone who asked for something like this, I think it's useful functionality. (especially now we have a much higher post rate).

But personally I don't find the categories that useful for my needs. I guess that's because my interests run across all the categories, but not for everything in them. Maybe there's nothing we can do about that. (except hardware... urgh).

What I'd really like would be a "Top Stories" category. I find that I don't have time to keep up with all thepsts these days, but I don't want to miss anything important. Yet the filler posts about a new press release or an unimportant new set of DLC aren't really appealing.
A "Top Stories" category (and RSS Feed) that contained anything that was important, amazing, impressive or of huge interest would be very useful.

(also, as these days I almost exclusively access RPS on my smartphone, it'd be really nice if the wordpress theme was changed to something mobile friendly or responsive. )

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it." - The Conclave